Doctor Bell, before the Senate committee of 1887, testified:—“Potatoes and all such vegetables would grow in Hudson bay district, but the immediate influence of the sea is unfavourable for gardens. Gardens close to the sea do not flourish as well as gardens inland. The frequent change from heat to cold and the fogs from the sea prejudicially affect them, and cause a sort of blight on vegetation close to the sea shore. But a few miles inland vegetation is more rank, and you can grow potatoes and the ordinary root crops. There are plenty of grasses there to keep cattle and sheep. There are many kinds of grasses there, also sedges, wild peas or vetches and lentils. They would make splendid feed for cattle.” Mr. Fawcett (Annual Report, Dep. Interior, 1885, pt. II, p. 37), speaking of his descent of the Wenassago to Lac Seul, says:—“In a few places I noticed soil of vegetable mould and clay loam, which would be well suited for the growth of grain and vegetables should the climatic conditions be favourable. I also observed here that the best soil generally produced a growth of poplar, and wherever it appeared large and thrifty, good soil might be looked for, comparatively free from rock. On the rocky ridges, as usual, scrubby pine was the prevailing timber, while the flats and muskegs were invariably covered with spruce and tamarack. The good land noticed seemed to be in belts three or four miles wide and extending north and south for a considerable distance, as might be expected from the geological formation, the depressions and elevations succeeding each other in very regular order and much in the same direction.” On Big Black river, which flows into the east side of Lake Winnipeg, Mr. A. S. Cochrane, of the Geological Survey, who surveyed that stream in 1882, reports the soil as “excellent, being a light-gray friable clay. . . . . The land up to Pelican portage is first class, but above this there is a low and swampy country, which extends to ‘Rapids-close-together’. A border of good land, on which some fair-sized timber grows, runs along both sides of the river.” FAVOURABLE LAKE AND SEVERN LAKE.